Lets say a pure mortal character who is skilled in guns (multiple guns stunts etc.) goes to an airport. Do you give them a compel to give up/not take their gun through security? What if they refuse? Do they get to spend 1 fate point and get their loaded gun past the security officers and metal detectors and x-rays? My point here is that in some circumstances buying out of this type of compel makes no sense at all ...
I think you're looking at buy-outs the wrong way-- it's not that the character "get[s to take] their loaded gun past the security officers," they don't (generally) just walk by unnoticed; it's that some story element allowing them to bypass that hurdle comes into play. It's generally up to the player or the table to come up with the reasoning behind the buy-out.
In the above case, simply telling the characters that they won't be able to get by the checkpoint with armaments thorugh normal means isn't unreasonable. It's an airport. They had no reason to believe they would be able to. A meeting of supernaturals is another matter.
I assume you took issue with the initial scenario because it lacks ready-made, out-of-the-box narrative flavor? There's no immediately obvious reason why it happened?
How about this, then: To use the above example, my players would probably swing into a mens' room bordering the checkpoint wall and declare that the hard-wall doesn't go above the ceiling tiles, store the gun up there, bypass the checkpoint, and then recover the gun on the other side. They generally had to spend fate points to do this (if they wanted to do it relatively quickly; otherwise skill checks to get blueprints to the airport for finding such a security flaw, etc).
The airport checkpoint would usually be enough to trigger them making declarations to get around it. Declarations using fate points. See how that works? Same end result, different way to get there.
The key point is: don't set your mind against them finding some way to do it. If your players want something bad enough and are willing to work for it, they should generally get it.
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I agree with everything you said.
I don't see the usefulnes of foci as a flaw. It doesn't damage the game, so far as I can tell.
If you were in Centarion's camp, though, you
would think it damages the game. It's
too good of an option. Foci is one of the primary ways that wizards so drastically outstrip mortals in high-refresh games.
(The power level of magic and its spending cap are another matter.)
But that ties
directly into the power level of magic. It's an option in the core rules that significantly increases magical output and capability. It's also significantly more potent, point-for-point of refresh, than any other option in the game.
I agree with you about GM spanking though.
I'm not surprised. You've got a good head on your shoulders even though we don't always agree on things. Most good GMs and modern game designers would agree with us on that principle. Game theory has come a long way in the last 30 years.